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Hey everyone, Just wanted to share that we've had a couple of incidents recently involving 'middle man' scams. This is where someone has joined the site and registered a username that is almost identical to the name of an existing member, apart from changing characters in the name for ones that look similar but are different. For example, they might replace small L with a capital i, they might replace O with 0 or they might add a full stop at the end of the name. Changes insignificant enough to allow the scammer to take a punt on a buyer not noticing when they make contact via PM and eventually get them to send money. In our situation we believe that the scams are from one individual who has registered two accounts that emulate the names of existing members. We have already taken steps to ensure their accounts are frozen and we have accrued enough information to help us identify if that individual if they try to register more accounts in the future...they won't be able to hide behind a VPN either. We are also going to raise how to prevent spoofed usernames with our forum software provider as a future development suggestion. So...if you are PM'd separately by someone about an item they claim is for sale in the marketplace, check their user name carefully and if you have any doubts based on I or 0 or . in their username, maybe reply to them initially from their post in your thread rather than direct to their PM. That way you can check if your message adds to their message or starts a new one. Also if members spot anyone masquerading as someone else, feel free to use the report function to flag it with the mod team and we will take a closer look. It's probably also worth reminding everyone to avoid using bank transfer or Paypal F&F to a seller. These payment methods don't offer refund options in the event of there being an error. (Although if you are quick enough, sometimes your bank might be able to reverse the transaction but it depends on your bank and whether you can prove deception as opposed to a lack of vigilance.) Thanks in advance for your help in making life difficult for these scumbag parasites.

I present a slightly custom bass - Spector Euro 4 LX. Made for Fitty Wienhold, bassist of U.D.O. It differs from the standard Euro version by the wood of the fretboard - here we have ebony instead of rosewood. The previous owner replaced the preamp with a copy of HazLab - LHZ-01, with a choice of power supply for 9V (imo it better reflects that classic Spector grit & grind) or 18V (imo gets along better with distortions, 9V sounds too harsh, doubling the voltage smooths out the drive). This bass will be the hero of tomorrow's cover on my YouTube channel!

Ahh, this year's FOMOcaster is here

NS Midas….neck manufacture. Nick picked a beautiful piece of curly/flamed maple. We missed taking photos of the fretboard side which was the first operation, truss rod and carbon fibre slots and fret board location holes were machined on the front side, the carbon fibre rods glued in and the face skimmed to ensure it was flat. These photos show the second operation, the neck is located on the fretboard pin holes from the first operation, machined to thickness, holes drilled for the brass threaded inserts, profile cut, tuner holes machined and then the carve was completed. Machining time on the second side is around 40 minutes. Once the fret board is made the front of the head and fretboard will be contoured to thickness together before being glued

I have wifely permission! Bow before my negotiation skills! (Also, I have to do a lot of DIY round the house).

I was going to say - everyone is aware that it's not against the rules to fit rounds on a P Bass, yes?

Right - all the email problems should now be sorted. If you have any new email issues, and by new, I mean email issues since 23:00 on 1st April, then let me know.

Busy day. Had some issues with the KB. Fretting out on G and D 5th fret. Took it to my wizard who diagnosed an issue that would require a fret dressing. Under warranty so an issue it wasn't. But after thinking it over for 6 hours I called to inform the shop I would be returning the bass. They abided. The Classic V is rock solid so it will remain with me. I then proceeded to purchase a new MTD 534 17. Just got back home with it. Crazy piece of kit. Fresh setup and strings. She needs some time to breath, but sexy in all the right places. Don't see a lot of 534 17s out there. Price was nuts. But I'm worth it. Amazingly solid fit and finish. Crazy Birdseye maple fretboard. Looks like roasted maple neck. I gotta read the sheet and give Michael a call. Get the real scoop on this baby inside and out. I'll post some pictures later. Time to chill.

But the Euros are made by NBE in the Czech Republic, in this place in Hořovice to be precise:

So I answered an advert on Facebook from a guy looking to restart his band after a couple of years break. It was a 3 piece doing mostly original songs in a blues/rock style. A bit of Rory Gallagher/Captan Beefheart. type thing. I liked what I heard on ReverbNation as they have about 40 songs. I was given two covers and 5 originals to learn about 2 weeks ago. I set about learning them and as you know it's always a bit harder to remember songs that you have never heard before! Anyway I met the drummer and singer last night in a practise studio and had an hour and a half of a run over the songs. No issues really,nice guys,good players....couple of things put me off. It looks like it's going to remain a 3 piece,ie guitar bass and drums. The drummer doesn't sing so backing vocals are needed from myself. I have done backing in bands before but usually with others pitching in. The journey was a nightmare in the Glasgow rush hour for a 6pm start at the studio. The drummer works so no chance of and early practice and late ones are pretty much a no no as we all get too tired lol! Anyway there was another guy to try out at 7.30 so I left. They asked me if I was up for it and to have a think about things and they would call later...by the time I had reached the car I decide it was not for me. Been down that road too many times before and I could see my interest dropping off as the band had zero gigs lined up,the drummer was in another busy band and my vocals are deffo not up to scratch! I had to try at at least to see if it would work and I hope I did not waste their time. But I really felt after thinking about it that I could not really be bothered! Apathy...guilty!

Shame but often gut feelings can be the ones to follow. I encountered similar a good few years back, the main thing that put me off was the drive to rehearsals, 45 mins in summer along country lanes, I knew that I wouldn`t last doing that in winter so declined, though I did offer to stand in for them until they found a permanent bassist. Did a couple of gigs which were good fun as they were a good bunch but ultimately my day one instincts I think served well that day.

How has no one posted this yet?

I own one of these in white, which I wrote about in the vintage Fenders thread. I've shielded it, swapped out the bridge for a high mass Fender and fitted a Sadowsky pickup (I reckon Dimarzio is the OEM). It is a nice, light and resonant bass that is a delight to play. Very inspirational. I have built various parts basses with P Bass body and Jazz necks over the years, but it is nice to be able to buy one off the shelf!

Saturday night was a local WMC. Local to me, that is, the rest of the band had a bit further to travel. I'd played here about 15 years ago with a club band and remembered it having a nice big stage. I think it was the first experience for the rest of the band of having the bingo between the first and second sets. Load in and out wasn't the greatest as it's a longer walk than I'd like, but with four people doing it it's not so bad. We didn't use our frame to hang the banner from as there was a rail above the light curtain at the back which was a convenient height. Following my experience with the originals band where we used my Alto TS408s as monitors and they proved more suited than the Alto TS308s, I swapped roles and used the 308s for FOH and the 408s as monitors. That all went well. Sound was good on stage and off. The gig went well. Not too many cockups, none really noticeable. I used the Sei Original 5 headless fretless and the Antoniotsai 5 dragon bass, through a Lekato WS-90 wireless and Zoom MS-60B to Tecamp Puma 900 and GR Bass AT212. Footwear was, as always, unbranded memory foam trainers from Ebay. Edit to add: they've just contacted us and asked us to go back there in August. I think that's the measure of a successful gig.

Two gigs for me this weekend, first was with Siren at The Boathouse, Bradford-on-Avon on Friday night - turned out to be a busy night with lots of faces recognised from our previous visits. We played pretty much all of our setlist but were cut short when the new manager turned on all the house lights and stage lights at the end of a medley that we do, we took that as a sign that he'd had enough, and so the crowd that had been up for a party all night, were calling for more to no avail!? A bit of a strange end to what had been a great evening really. Sadly no photos to share, as I was heading there straight from work I used my 'easy' rig, TT800, Big Twin II, Geddy Jazz with 70's P Bass as back up. Saturday night saw Sarum's Lot play at The Devizes Inn in Salisbury. We were asked to setup in the darts room. This was the exact opposite of the previous night where space was somewhat limited, so was a rather intimate set up for the drummer and me, leaving the guitarist to enjoy loads of room on his side of the room - in fairness to him he does tend to boogie and is much more animated than me! The crowd were up for a good time from the off, loads of singing & dancing, even some air guitar! This band plays classic rock covers and we were asked by a young lad whether we could do 'I believe in a thing called love' - we don't do it but duly had a go, and smashed it right out the park (even if I do say myself!). A thoroughly enjoyable gig with a great crowd - we all left buzzing 🙂 Same gear as previous night. Hopefully the links work😊 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16anAdo3PW/?mibextid=wwXIfr https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1F9bZbTbBw/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Two gigs for me this weekend, both on the East Yorkshire coast. Saturday saw me playing with The Alligators blues band at The Black Lion in Bridlington’s historic old town. Quite a large pub at the front, with an amazing room at the rear that is concealed from the pub by large velvet curtains. There are raked pews that lead down to a dance floor area, and the stage is like a small theatre, with a a large dB PA that unfortunately we didn’t get to use. Easy get in from a side alleyway so it looked like being a great gig. Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of punters, but we still gave it our best to the small groups of folk who ventured in. A great sounding room, and I used my usual passive Precison Lyte / Rumble 500 combo which I’m really enjoying. Finished at 11.15pm, quick pack down and home by 12.30. Sunday early evening I was at our regular haunt in Scarborough, ‘The Lookout on the Pier’ with the acoustic duo. A beautiful day meant the town was busy, but we got parked ok and set to go by 6pm. The venue was rammed with diners plus a few guests seated at the back. We played our usual request format, and tunes included ‘Samba pa ti’, a couple of Simon and Garfunkel things and ‘Copacabana’ which I’d forgotten how much of a workout the bassline was! We both were given a nice tip from a visiting celebrity couple who remembered us from a gig there a couple of years ago, and also received an enquiry to play at the local yacht club from a couple who’d arrived at the gig by yacht - who’d have thought that in Scarbados! It was one of those gigs where it all gelled - great venue, audience and our playing, so much so that I genuinely could have played for another hour or more. Still, home by 10pm to pizza and wine.

So pretty much every bass on this planet then 😉

A quick scan through the classifieds reveals...

I don’t suppose you can change the sensitivity internally. Just goes to illustrate how finding the best filter for your own style also needs to take into account the output and bandwidth of your instrument.

Link should be working now!

My latest pedal - a Markbass SuperBooster, recently bought from @redd It's slightly unusual in needing 12v DC, but my pedal board has a 12v output, and the Crate amp featured in the photo has a 12v lead acid battery which I expect I'll be able to tap off for mobile operation. My signal chain is simply Lifeline DB pickup -> SuperBooster -> Crate battery amp. Sounds good.

That stopped you ? Whilst you were “channelling the force” ** 😳 a euphemism for “pissed” and “purchase-focused” in one amalgamated emotional state

Still haven’t found what I’m Lochinvar - U2

The way to find out would be to model the response using software like WinISD. You need to know the internal volume of the cabinet and the length and area of the ports, plus the parameters of the driver you want to use which should in the manufacturer's datasheet. I'm not experienced enough to look at the output of the modelling and tell you how it will sound, but if someone like @Phil Starr has spare time they might be able to run it and give a quick opinion. The thing is, as @bremen says, the "600W" driver rating is only half the story, basically being how much power you can put in to the driver under standard measurement conditions before something melts. The other half of the story is how far the cone can move before something breaks, and the power it takes to cause that is dependent on the enclosure as well as the speaker because the air in the enclosure affects how the speaker cone moves. To get more volume out of the same size driver in the same enclosure you are going to need the cone to move further, and it might be that the "600W" driver will hit its excursion limit at the same or even lower volume compared to the "250W" driver. If the higher rated driver is less sensitive it might even take more power to reach a lower maximum volume.

Probably a good decision. Having to learn all the material, combined with rehearsals, when your heart isn’t completely in it, would probably just piss you off and lead to you jacking it in. Being of a similar vintage, one’s time is better spent doing things that bring you joy.

Sounds like the correct decision on your part.

Had the last rehearsal last night before our 10th anniversary gig this Saturday! A night of classic British '76-'82 punk covers, plus it's the singers birthday the following day. What could POSSIBLY go wrong........🥸🥸

Some early Stingray prototypes had a reverse P pickup in the MM pickup position. So indeed absolutely nothing like on the Joe Dart shorty, but it's not weird either.

All the pro musicians I know, teach. Even the ones in touring orchestras, teach when they're not touring or doing afternoon and evening performances in London. There are a few with West End show residencies.

Looks like it works!!!

First thing would be to specify exactly which bass model you have, so the specs could be understood. From your description, it sounds like your passive mode is just bypassing the entire pre-amp circuit, in which case it would be far simpler to replace the electronics as a whole to one designed with an integrated passive tone control, such as a Sadowsky, East, etc. There are plenty of options out there.

I have realised buying basses is just a justification for going to shops to try out lots of nice instruments and gear. How can I do that and not buy...

Well pedal toppers or not I’m definitely out now as I purchased a pink Sire fiver from here at the weekend!

The pickguard chat in this thread was enough to make me sign up. The red tortoiseshell pickguard on the Fender Hama Okamoto Precision Bass is pretty good. A cut above the standard dark maroon modern Fender tort or the various lurid tortoiseshell pickguards on eBay. This is mine: The tort layer is thin, but is the right mix of red, darker and lighter shades. The white sub layers are more parchment than stark white as well. I am 99.9% sure these same pickguards are sold separately under the 'Boston' brand, part number PB-415-TI. I bought one of these pickguards from a Dutch seller and put it on my AM Pro-II P Bass: It isn't a Spitfire or Lavaguard pickguard, but a few tweaks to the colours used puts them well ahead of other cheap pickguards.

This is Pimlico's law. The longer a discussion goes on about musicians' pay, sooner or later someone will bring plumbers into the chat. It's like Godwins law but with different kinds of tanks.

I had this discussion with my daughter. If you do something as a profession (I write things, for example) and someone asked me to do a job I would expect them to pay for it. If I choose to do it for free, that’s on me. But the *assumption* I would do it for free is where the problem begins. You and your friend have a lovely arrangement, but I understand what our headless friend was saying. My friend fixed a split seam in a double bass. I offered to pay, he refused. We settled on a charity donation and a crate of artisan beer. We were all happy.

For those interested. I just used Plasticote 2 in 1 paint and primer from Hobbycraft and a satin clear coat. Not the greatest job in the world but it was cheap 😅

Over here, it was this, but it seems to have been totally forgotten now...

A renowned guitarist once said to me, there are three reasons to gig. 1. The qualities of the music. 2. The quality of the 'hang', or 3. Good money. One of the above is enough, two is great, three is heaven. I think we get out of it what we put in and it will vary for all of us.

At the risk of derailing the thread too much, that is my absolute pet peeve. "But I can't hear the bass in your review videos!" "Sorry to hear that, what are you listening on?" "My phone..." "Right.." "But its a good one though!" No, no it isn't.

We had a good night at the Cow & Telescope in Southend on Friday evening. It was a bit of a rush getting home from work, scoffing a quick dinner and out again, but we had more time than we realised to set up at a relaxed pace and soundcheck. As usual in this venue, it seemed a bit too quiet on there when we setting up, but by the time we kick off at 9.30 we had a decent crowd of regulars and a steady stream of arrivals whilst we played. I made a couple of mistakes - including completely blanking halfway through the "Time is running out" riff. I put it down to not feeling 100% due to an iffy stomach I've had for a few days. I managed to blag my way through it and remembered it by the second or third time round. I noticed a couple of guys pointing and watching me intently during "Runaway Baby". I'm unsure if they were impressed or spotted errors in my playing! 😄. Another patron came up to me when we had finished and said it was so refreshing to see a band actually move around and put on a show, rather than just standing stock still and looking at our guitars and feet. A couple of our usual mob (including my wife and brother, who are not afraid to offer constructive criticism) said the set list was great too, with a few songs we hadn't played in years thrown in. We try to avoid too much repetition - for ourselves as much as anything! But it all seemed to flow nicely and kept people up dancing until the obligatory encores were finished with. So yes, all in all a good night. The next one is The Cricketers in nearby Westcliff on Easter Sunday. Out first time at this venue, and one we've wanted to get into for a while. We'll be a couple of members down (one of the guitarists, and using a dep drummer), but I'm sure it'll be fine.

My first gig this year with my main squeeze, Felis Leo. We played at the Angel Inn, Andover...my first time there. Back in my youth I would drink mainly at the Lamb, the Lardie and the Station. The gig was part of a multi band, multi venue festival under the banner 'Andover Rocks Reignited' and I think we were the only originals band playing at our venue. One of our guitarists moonlights in a covers band and they were further up the bill, we were on at 3pm and they were on at 8. There were 2 stages, one for bands and at the other end of the pub, one for acoustic solo or duo acts. It was amazingly well organised, to the second as well! There were screens onstage for the bands counting down to the start of their sets and subsequently to the end of their sets. This was incredibly helpful 😁 My set up was an Ibanez sr1205 which I haven't played in anger for a long time, a TC Electronic BH550 and my two Barefaced one10s. Had a couple of complimentary comments about the one10s and my sound so chuffed with that (compliments are rare so I'll grab em when I get em). The whole day was actually great with not even a minor gripe about anything, got our photo taken by the local rag, everyone was in a great mood, spoke to people in the flesh who I've only conversed with on our socials and people genuinely enjoyed our set! I still have the same warm afterglow now that I had yesterday 👍🏻 I've not received many video clips yet but here's a bit of Timezone taken by the singer in our guitarist's other band VID-20250330-WA0000.mp4

Three-set outing at the Reivers Sports Bar in Galashiels last night. Six of us had to squeeze onto a stage that was all of three metres square and boxed in by railings. It was tight, to say the least. First time we'd played there and the punters were quite boisterous, with many of them celebrating Rangers' 4-3 win over whoever the other lot were. Dundee, maybe. Went down really well, including six new songs that were having their first outing. Plenty of happy punters dancing and singing along. On the downside, the back of the stage was in almost complete darkness so I spent a lot of time squinting at the neck trying to see the fretboard markers. Then during the second set, my strap came off. I had to perch on the edge of my cab desperately punching out root notes on the one until the song ended. I think that'll be me out of the gear abstinence thread when I get a set of Schallers. We're playing there again on the 17th May. The rig will be the same as last night - Sterling Stingray 5, Eden WTX264 atop an Eden 210 cab turned on its side (the space was that tight!). Something to cast a bit of light on the neck is on the cards - the light from my tablet helped a bit but not enough. All in all though, a great night!